Saturday, December 14, 2013

Twitter nixes changes to blocking feature

Twitter reversed course on changes to its blocking functionality that many users complained would leave the service more prone to abuse.

When a user blocks someone on Twitter, it prevents them from following or messaging that user, as well as add that account to their lists.

A change introduced yesterday by Twitter would have turned block into essentially a mute button, where users could remove their tweets from their Timeline, but the blocked user could still follow that user and reply to messages.

"We have decided to revert the change after receiving feedback from many users," said Michael Sippey, Twitter's vice president of product, in a blog post. "We never want to introduce features at the cost of users feeling less safe."

The changes caused an uproar on Twitter, highlighted by the trending hashtag restoretheblock, raising worries that the move would make it easier for users to abuse and harass others.

Twitter continues to defend the revised block function, citing concerns blocked users could retaliate. "Some users worry just as much about post-blocking retaliation as they do about pre-blocking abuse," says Sippey.

He also says Twitter will continue to "explore features" to prevent abuse on the site.